F1: The Movie was released last summer with a lot of marketing hype and high-profile reviews – I seem to recall seeing it on the front page of USA Today – and then it vanished without a trace.

I was intrigued, so I went and procured a copy. I am no longer intrigued.

To give you an idea of the writing, I’m going to go ahead and spoil something minor. The protagonists’ racing team has a fighting chance in the season standings because of two things: the hero’s hyper-aggressive tactics and some new aerodynamic car parts that aid those hyper-aggressive tactics. Well, about two-thirds of the way into the movie, some liar sends forged documents to the race officials alleging that those car parts violate the FIA’s procurement rules; while the officials are investigating, the hero has to race in an inferior car. He’s so flustered by this that, next race, he drives into a wall and lands in the hospital.

That doesn’t sound minor, does it? Well, it was. The team proves its innocence offscreen, and the hero basically IDs the liar by accident when he realizes he’s talking to the only person in the movie who could be described as “conniving.” There’s the implication of consequences for the liar’s career… sometime in the future, offscreen, and that implication is made by an unnamed executive who seems, at most, mildly bemused by it all.

Every plot point is like this, either lacking lasting impact, trivially resolved, or both. And the closest this movie comes to suspense is when there are multiple age-old and obvious sports-movie tropes to choose from.

The characters are hard to connect with; most of them are there to serve the tropes, not to engage the viewer. As for their actors, every one I recognized has done better work elsewhere, and that includes the guy from Underworld: Blood Wars.

And as for spectacle… I’ve heard the camera work was technically impressive, but the impression it left me with was a lot of vibrating cockpits and radio chatter. Maybe if I was already a F1 fan and could stand the innacuracies, I’d have been predisposed to enjoy it more…

In summary, this was barely worth watching for free.